WNC-SWUG SoapBox

The blog has moved!

2009-02-24T06:43:00.002-05:00

Update you links the blog is now located at: www.wnc-swug.weebly.com . This link is also to the website of the WNC/ Asheville SWUG. This will be the last post at this site.

Things are changing

2009-02-04T07:12:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd mention a couple of changes to the blog page. I added a Google Calendar widget but I can't get it to link to the newly created WNC-SWUG Calendar....So if you look down in the "Things to Click" widget you will see a link to the calendar. I'm still researching the calendar widget, there must be a way for it to show the WNC-SWUG Calendar. Does anyone have any experience with this?

To make the "Things to Click" more relevant to our group I'm asking you the reader for your favorite CAD, SolidWorks or engineering links. In the mean time I'm looking over the available widgets to see if there is anything else that might be useful or even fun.

Here's a SolidWorks question: Is anyone else experiencing weird things happening with the 'CapsLock' in SolidWorks? This started in SW 2009 and with the use of the Property Tab. When I start typing in information for the various custom properties I always have to look to see what case I'm typing in. Even though the 'CapsLock' light is lit on the keyboard I might be typing in lowercase. I toggle the CapsLock, the keyboard light goes out but now I'm typing in UPPERCASE. I proceed to finish this part, save it and start another and the process has to be reversed. Are you humming the Twilight Zone theme now?

I'm back and this is why I've been away.

2009-02-03T14:36:00.002-05:00

I know it doesn't look like much but it is the 3rd one I've done since the last post. I can't tell you much about it other than say it is a glove box to handle some rather 'hot' materials. I've been doing 11.5 hour days 6 days a week for the last two weeks. I'm starting to dream in the SolidWorks interface.

Update to all SWUG members: I have to get Wes' okay on this before it will be official but I'm thinking of letting the WNC-SWUG.org website go dead and move as much of its content to this blog as I can. The bill for the domain registration and hosting will be due soon and I just don't think the traffic that the site gets justifies it's cost. Even though it's not much and I've been footing the bill since it's inception times are starting to get hard and we all need to find ways to cut back. This will also make it easier for me to update the news on the site. I know that SolidWorks requires that the usergroup have a website, is a blog good enough? Wes will need to answer that question? Are you listening Wes?

What do you think? Is the 'blog' format sufficient to get out the news concerning the usergroup? Let me know your thoughts as they will ultimately influence my decision...

Wes Cobb returns with another guest blog!

2009-01-15T07:43:00.003-05:00

WNC- ASHEVILLE SolidWorks USER GROUP

Meeting held January 8, 2009

As I am to be the “featured blogger” on Jeff Cox’s BLOG (http://wnc-swug.blogspot.com/) this week, I guess I’m going to go into much more detail of our meeting this past Thursday than I normally would if someone else had taken the notes!!

The meeting began as usual with general information concerning SW. About half of the group present is now on SW2009 (members present: 17 total w/ one VAR rep.). No problems were mentioned beyond those from our previous meeting. My grayed out “link to BOM” issue has been reported to SW and an SPR has been issued as of Fri., Jan 9th. We did intro’s all around and kicked off the technical portion of the meeting.

Rodney Hall was our presenter and did a great job giving us Administrative tips concerning hardware and software requirements, planning, support and maintenance, documentation and disaster recovery. While disaster recovery sounds pretty ominous, it doesn’t have to be if you are prepared with an Administrative image of SW. Rodney went on to show us how he has prepared his computers Administrative image to fully install SW with specific configurations for each workstation involved in a crisis and be up and running in a matter of minutes. Good stuff. Rodney has offered his PowerPoint presentation as a guide for any SWUG member wanting it. If you’re interested in this presentation and would like the PowerPoint please email me

We ended the meeting at 9:30 p.m.

Our next meeting is March 12th. The topic for that evening will be a report from SolidWorks World 2009 by Tom Wilson. Also, some tips and tricks from SW2009.

NEWS:
A new Modeling Contest kicked off at the January meeting and runs thru March 12th. The contest centers on a new logo for our group. The logo should be done in SW and will be judged on design and uniqueness. For some examples see below:

SW World happens February 8th thru 11th in Orlando Fl.

Our thanks go to the Lutheran Church of the Nativity for providing the meeting place.
Pizza and drinks were provided by SolidWorks / Tom Wilson (QMS).
Door prizes were provided by RAPID SHEETMETAL.

Our sponsor:

Rapid Sheet Metal makes prototype and short run sheet metal parts. They have donated some nice door prizes to be given out at our user group meeting.

WNC/ASHEVILLE SWUG MEETING THIS WEEK

2009-01-05T07:38:00.002-05:00

Wes Cobb is our guest blogger today. Wes is the leader of the WNC/Asheville SWUG.

Our first meeting of the year is this coming Thursday, January 8th. This years’ “kickoff meeting” features Rodney Hall talking about SolidWorks Administration Tips and “Things your IT department SHOULD KNOW about SolidWorks” The information Rodney has for us should aid anyone involved with installing and setting up SW to run efficiently.

PROBLEM!!
I installed SW2009 during the holiday break and have found an issue. If any of you can help me please respond. Here’s what’s going on:
Since installing SW2009 sp0, I am having a problem in an assembly drawing with "link to BOM" option being "grayed out". This is an issue only on my workstation. Also loaded Sw2009 sp1.0 on my laptop and DO NOT have the problem. Uninstalled and re-installed SW2009 and installed sp2.0EV on workstation and continue to have problem. I have done very little work since loading sp2.0EV. One very simple model and all performed well. A couple notes of interest, my laptop is brand new and SW2009 loaded with no problems. My workstation had SW2007 and 2008 on it previous to SW2009 install. I did remove SW2007 and cleaned out the registry as well prior to SW2009 install.
I have been on the Forum board at SW Customer Portal and find about 8 other people reporting the same problem. I posted my computer info as well as the current settings for my workstation but have yet to find any help. My VAR has the same problem but has been unable to help at this point.

Great way to start the new year!! But look, we all get together next week and we’ll solve this thing and all be heroes!!
So, if you haven't already done so, let me know ASAP if you plan on being with us Thursday, January 8th. If you need any more incentive…I’ll pay for gas for four, randomly selected members to attend. What more could you ask for, good food, me, free gas, me, Rodney Hall, me, comradery and me. O.k., enough….See you all there.
Regards to all,

Wes

AGENDA for January 8th, 2009 MEETING

5:30 – 6:15 pm: REGISTRATION / REFRESHMENTS / SOCIAL
6:15 – 7:45 pm: The topic for this evening will be “SolidWorks Administration Tips” presented by Rodney Hall. Rodney has had experience in building and customizing computer systems and optimizing those systems to run SolidWorks. Rodney will share his knowledge and expertise in deploying and administering SolidWorks in a working environment. Featured will be “Things your IT department SHOULD KNOW about SolidWorks”.
6:50 – 7:00 pm: BREAK (maybe)
7:45 – 8:00 pm: Wrap up, Questions and Answers, Q and A, Door prizes and parting gifts.

Host Facility: Lutheran Church of the Nativity Contact: Wes Cobb
2425 Hendersonville Road Technical Design Associates, Inc.
Arden, NC 828-883-4242
(fax) 828-883-3050
tecdesign@citcom.net

Click Here For a Map

Sheet Metal Miter Flange Hint

2008-12-03T10:40:00.006-05:00

When using the miter flange command in SolidWorks you have the option of setting a ‘Gap Distance’ as seen in this picture:

The gap distance was set as .069296 and the resulting ‘corner gap’ is .049. If you are wishing to add spotweld tab flanges that would fold inside of these existing flanges you need to have a ‘corner gap’ of slightly more than the material thickness. In this example I’m using 18ga which is why I went with the .049 corner gap. The mitered flange command does not give you the option of entering the ‘corner gap’ it only gives you the option of entering a Gap distance. How do you determine the Gap distance required to give you a desired corner gap?

The formula is:

where .049 is the desired corner gap.

The keystrokes on a TI 89 calculator is as follows: (replace .049 with the corner gap you desire)

KEY STROKES DISPLAY

2nd

√ √(

( √(( * - on a TI 86 press ‘(‘ twice

.049 √((.049

^ √((.049^

2 √((.049^2

) √((.049^2)

X √((.049^2)X

2 √((.049^2)X2

) √((.049^2)X2)

ENTER .069296…

With this useful piece of information I can now finish the part as such:

This started out as an exercise for myself wanting to get this procedure down on paper so I don’t have to think about when I need to do it. But I guess someone else might get some use out of it. Now I just need to create a function on the TI-89 to do this with less keystrokes…

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 2

2008-11-21T07:59:00.003-05:00

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 2

Tolerances for Sheet Metal parts:

A bit of history first: When I started working in sheet metal in 1975 we generally worked to +/- .063 inches. In the shop I worked at initially there wasn’t a pair of calipers to be found. Everything was checked with a tape measure. When I interviewed at Byers Precision it was stressed to me that they worked to much closer tolerances, .010 - .015 typically. This led to a funny story…On my first day on the job I was given a print, told to figure the flat pattern, shear, punch & form the part. With the interview still fresh in my mind I determined to accomplish making this part to the +/- .010 tolerance. I sheared the part using a tape measure to size it, punched the holes on a manual one station punch and then proceeded to form the part on a hand brake. I worked and worked on this part trying to get it within the goal tolerance. An hour or two passed and even though I had a nice looking part it was still not within tolerance. I was starting on my second attempt when the foreman came over and asked me what the h**l I was doing. When I explained that I was having a hard time holding the part to +/- .010 he laughed and said that the part was not critical and as long as it was within an 1/8” of an inch it was good enough! If there is a lesson in that story it is this; know what the tolerance is before you waste a lot of time.

The factors that come into play in sheet metal are numerous but let’s just look at one now.
Material thickness: Take a look at the mill tolerances of sheet stock and you will see that the range of thickness for a given gauges bottom and top range actually overlap the gauges on either side. In other words a thin 11 gauge could be sold as a thick 12 gauge while a thick 11 gauge could be a thin 10 gauge. Engineers should allow for 5% thickness variation on thickness which would equate to .006 on 11 gauge. And consider that this amount doubles for each bend in the part as the difference will be seen on each side of the bend. Can tighter tolerances be held? Yes but a premium must be realized in order to achieve them. Hole location from the edge of a part can be held to a tighter tolerance but from a bend to a hole is again affected by the material thickness. Today’s modern numeric control punches and lasers have a positional tolerance of .003 to .005 inches so this must be figured in along with the sheet thickness variation. The only way around this would be to place the hole after the forming operation which is costly. So the in effect the tolerance for a hole from a bend is 10% (2 x 5%) or .012 + .005 or .017 inches for 11 gauge material. Some sheet metal shops will also want additional tolerance allowed for material elasticity variations that affect the form dimensions. At Byers we feel that we overcome these variations to some extent by use of custom K-Factors for the different materials. We also try to overcome these variations at the forming operation by varying the bend radius of the part to get the desired result. Engineers, check a sheet metal gauge chart before designing a part. You might be surprised how many times we get designs calling for 11ga but the part is actually designed with a .125 thickness. 11ga is never .125 thick, it is more commonly .120. That’s .005 difference before we even start modeling the part. This difference shows up most when the engineer has some dimensions on the inside of the material and others on the outside of the material. Be consistent, dimension to the inside or the outside but not both.
Since I’m discussing sheet metal gauges I must comment on gauge callouts for non-ferrous materials. Don’t call out for 11ga Aluminum. This is an obsolete and leads to confusion. Don’t be surprised if you get a call about this. Most designers are not even aware that gauges differ between ferrous and non-ferrous material which is why I will always call you and ask you what thickness in inches you actually want. A much better way to spec non-ferrous thickness is to give the decimal equivalent such as .090 or .060. Look at this chart to see the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous gauges

For more information on reasonable sheet metal tolerances see this page:

Everything I’ve said in this posting should be taken with a grain of salt. If you can design you part within these boundaries then you will get a better price on the production. But if tighter tolerances are a must then they can be done but you need to expect to pay a premium for them.

November WNC-Aheville SWUG Meeting - minutes

2008-11-14T09:12:00.004-05:00

More SolidWorks 2009 Goodies

At the November WNC-Asheville Users group meeting we enjoyed good food, conversation and presentation. Tom Wilson cooked up his excellent barbecue chicken and ribs with all the fixings. Wes caught us up on what is going on with WNC-SWUG. Several People brought up issues and questions that they had about SolidWorks. This is what is so nice about these meetings; you will either find an answer or at least find out that you’re not the only person experiencing the issue.
After the meal Wes gave us a short run down on what’s going on now and in the next few months. SolidWorks World was the 1st topic: February 8-11 in Orlando Florida. As of now we only have one ‘user’ that will be attending. As a person who went last year I strongly recommend you going. If it was at all possible (i.e. I won the lottery) I would be going again this year.
Our next meeting will be on January 8th, 2009. Wes encouraged us to all bring a product that we designed in SolidWorks to this meeting. He also shared that from the recent poll he conducted that the most sought after topic for meetings was hints & tips. So next year expect more member presentations of the base SolidWorks products and less 3rd party add-on presentations.
Wes then opened the floor for problems, questions and comments. I brought up an issue I’ve been having with the visibility of sketches changing on its own. No one had an answer for that but other people were having the same issue which in a strange way made me feel a bit better. Wes is having a problem with the “Dynamic highlight from graphics view” option toggling off by itself. A bunch of us have experienced this, I remember it being an issue in SW2007. Walid is having an issue with sketch visibility between different configurations. No one else had seen this but it might be related to the problem I mentioned.
Keith Dacus took over and showed us his favorite things that are new in 2009. I present them below in list form.
1. Triad is now active…change view orientation by clicking on the triad axis.
2. Magnifier…’G’ turns it on & off. With the cursor in the magnifier, roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Hold the ‘alt’ key down and roll the wheel to section what is in the magnifier. Move the magnifier by moving your cursor to its edge or by ‘ctrl’ middle button. And yes you can ‘ctrl’ select within and out of the magnifier. Really slick.
3. Double clicking the middle button is the same as typing ‘f’ for zoom all.
4. In the equation editor there is now a button on the bottom that pulls up a selector of all the properties.
5. Drop your bill of material into the assembly. This will allow you to manage all aspects of it while working on your assembly. It might have been at this point where we chased a rabbit and talked about Phil’s need to display a quantity as “as required”. We discussed virtual components and what they are used for. I asked about printing the BOM and Keith informed that while it can’t be done within the assembly file you can now do it in the drawing.
6. Instant 3D now works within assemblies allowing you to have dynamic feedback to change distance and angle mates.
7. Error reporting has been improved by the addition of phantom lines showing missing edges. For example when an edge is removed that a subsequent fillet modified you actually see a ghostly dash line showing the edge that is no longer there.
8. Rib tool – In previous versions you had no choice where the draft originated from, now when you apply draft you pick which face maintains the rib width. (not a very good explanation)
9. Measure tool now shows dual dimensions...I like this!
10. Multiple handles to pull and push on when in Instant 3D. Again we chased another rabbit here and talked about how Instant 3D should only be used for conception…hard dimensions should be applied at some point and Instant 3D turned off to prevent mishaps.
11. Weldments – several new and cool improvements here. Add chamfers and weld preps to gussets. Include weld gaps as required and some really neat trim/extend features. I wondered if the Weld Gap functionality would allow for negative values since we typically have a problem with shrinkage from the welding. In other word I need the members to be a little bit longer to compensate for the shrinkage. Keith checked it out and we found that you are limited to a positive value for the weld gap. But Michael Jolley verified that you can perform a ‘move face’ on the end of the weldment member and the cutlist updates accordingly.
12. Sheet metal – Convert to sheet metal and cross breaks...sheet metal is boring so that’s all I’m saying about that. Just kidding, once again we chased a rabbit and talked about how the convert to sheet metal is useful but will make a part that might not be manufacturable.

We wrapped up with some more questions and comments. Walid wanted to know how to do a ‘tabulated’ drawing. We received a short course on design tables from Rodney Hall. Wes closed the meeting by throwing out (literally) backpacks and briefcases to those who wanted them. He then drew names for the three $25 gas cards provide by our sponsor Rapid Sheet Metal.
Great meeting, thanks to everyone involved. Here are some pics taken by Rodney and me.

Practical Sheet Metal Design Part 1

2008-11-13T08:39:00.009-05:00

Pracitcal Sheet Metal Design Part 1

CRASH!

The ability of SolidWorks to do sheet metal design is both a blessing and a curse to sheet metal job shops. Understand this is no fault of the software but of engineers who don't really understand how bends are made in sheet metal. The example shown in the following figures is typical of what some of our customers will design. They even provide us with SolidWorks part files that they have have modeled. Can this part be made as modeled? Yes it can but it would required special costly tooling and extended lead times for the tooling. It has been our experience that making this in two pieces and welding two seams instead of one is more cost effective.

Figure 1 - the part

A simple part until you start looking at the bending operation. In the following figures you will see that I added typical press brake tooling and a section of the press brake ram so that you can see the problem with bending this part as modeled.

Figure 2

The first bend is no problem. you could start on either end of the flat blank with the same results.

Figure 3

The same holds true for the next bend. you will note that there is no interference between the sheet metal and the press brake.

Figure 4 - CRASH!

Now you can plainly see the problem. Even if the 4.00" dimension in the part sketch was increased the part would still crash. The only solution that would allow forming this part as modeled would be what we call a 'window punch'. This involves using a tool that would fit inside the part has modeled and extends far enough past both ends of the part so that 'extensions' could be placed between the press brake ram and the punch. When the last bend is made, one of the extensions would be removed so that the part could be removed. This only works for softer material of a lighter gauge because of the loading placed on the tooling.

I hope this explanation is clear to all those who design sheet metal with limited experience of the manufacture of sheet metal parts. I will continue in the coming days to share more instances where a small changes can save you money in your sheet metal designs.

WNC/ASHEVILLE SWUG MEETING TOMORROW

2008-11-12T10:33:00.006-05:00

This is your last chance this year to attend our user group meeting. Barbecue will be on the menu as well as Keith Dacus presenting "What was not shown at the SW2009 Roll Out". Keith is an excellent presenter that will keep you entertained while you learn some of the great new stuff in SolidWorks 2009. I wish to thank him and TPM for supporting our user group.

I hope he concentrates on features in the base SolidWorks package. I hate getting all excited about some new feature only to find out that I have to have the professional or premium to take advantage of it. I was kind of interested in who has what so I set up a poll here for you to respond to. If you're not sure what you have here is a product matrix line.

One other thing...I know it's a day late but call or email a veteran and thank him for serving our country so that me and you can enjoy the freedoms that we have. You will be surprised at the response you will get. I email my uncle who served during the VietNam war and I could tell that he was touched by my thinking of him. I did the same for my brother who was in the Gulf war (the 1st one) and even though he was thankful of me thinking of him he was somewhat upset that he doesn't have the day off. I remember him pointing out when he worked another job that it was a shame that he got MLK day off but not Veterans day. Something to think about. Maybe 'THE ONE" will do something about this and make Veterans Day a national holiday like July 4th.

See you tomorrow night.

CSWP Training materials

2008-11-06T10:08:00.001-05:00

CSWP Training materials…are they worth their cost?

I was able to successfully pass the CSWA exam earlier this year by doing the sample test available from SolidWorks and a lot of reading from Matt Lombard’s book. My intention was to go for the Professional exam soon afterwards but that didn’t happen. I guess I’m feeling the same trepidation as I did before I took the CSWA. In my day to day work I use such a small subset of the SolidWorks program (sheet metal) I fear that I just don’t have the experience to even think of taking the CSWP exam.

So here is my question to the SolidWorks masses out there: Are any of the training materials worth the $300 - $500 that they cost. I’m thinking of the myigetit.com course and the one from Solid Professor. I’m thinking of asking the boss to ante up for this since he’s not sending us to SolidWorks World this year. But he will expect results, successful passing of the test.

Come on guys, give me some feedback. Surely someone out there has purchased one of these and has some advice to offer.

Thanks in advance,

Copy With Mates - A Simple Tutorial

2008-11-05T12:50:00.005-05:00

The Copy with Mates command has always been an underused feature in SolidWorks for me. I'm not really sure why but every time I went to use it I had to refer to the program help to figure it out. On a recent project that involved a lot of hardware placement into the assemblies I took another look at the command and through repeated use I finally have a handle on it's use.
Take a look at this simple assembly that has a single PEM fastener installed with a concentric and a coincident mate to the sheet metal part. I need to replicate this feature with the same mates on all the holes.

Image 1

In Image 2 you see that I've selected the PEM nut and clicked the 'Copy with Mates' button. (I added the button to the toolbar, its not there by default.) The dialogue box shows the selected components and the mates associated with the components. Click in the box associated with the 1st listed mate, 'Concentric3' in this case.

Image 2

Now all that is left is picking the surfaces that will satisfy these 2 mates. You see in image 3 that I've zoomed up on one of the holes. I have the selection filter set to 'Faces' and I've already picked the inside of the hole in the sheet metal. You see a preview of the PEM nut placement.

Image3

Notice that next to the mate boxes there is a tick box with the word 'Repeat' next to it. Since all the PEM nuts will meet this mate requirement I will check the box next to the Coincident3 mate.
As soon as I check the box the PEM nut snaps into place as shown in Image 4 below.

Image 4

Make sure you click the OK button or the PEM nut will not be placed, but don't click it twice because that will exit the command and we have more hardware to place. All you have to do now is continue picking the face of the holes and clicking OK (once) after each PEM is placed.

Image5 - Shows that the face of the 2nd hole is selected and the PEM will be placed here.

Now think about how many clicks you will save by using the 'Copy with Mates'. Also note that if there had been a screw and washer inserted into that single PEM nut we could have applied the 'Copy with Mates' to all three at the same time. Here is the part with all the PEM hardware installed:

Playing around with SW2009

2008-10-23T09:35:00.002-04:00

I just found something that I hadn't read or seen concerning SolidWorks 2009. Under VIEW you will see a new entry call WORKSPACE. Here you will find picks for Default, Widescreen & Dual Monitor. Clicking on Widescreen gives you a vertical command manager. This makes more efficient use of the widescreen monitors that seem to be the norm now. Check it out!

Have you seen something new in 2009 that you didn't know about? Lets get some posting going to share what we learn...

SolidWorks 2009 rollout by TPM

2008-10-22T07:00:00.003-04:00

The rollout of SolidWorks 2009 put on by TPM was very informative. Several members of the WNC-SWUG were present as witnessed by the pictures below. Wes kicked off the event with an introduction and invitation to become involved with the user group. Keith Dacus started the presentation with a demonstration of Simulation the new upgraded version of Cosmos. This is the first presentation I’ve seen Keith do and I was very impressed, good job Keith. Every time I see a presentation of an analysis package I think back over the last year and the times when it would have came in handy in my work but there are not enough times to justify the expense for us as we actually do very little design work in house. That said I do have to comment on the new sensors that are available in even the base package SolidWorks. I not sure but I think that the ‘Mass Sensor’ will be available to all users. It allows us to constantly monitor the mass of the part while you are modeling it. If this is not included in the base package, please correct me.

After a short break the session picked up again with Steve Ostrovsky showing us all the cool stuff in SW2009. Speedpacks are slick but the thing that will help my job the best is the new way to handle custom properties. When you have a multi user environment it is hard to get consistency across the board. The new custom properties interface builder will really cut down on the typing we have to do as we will be able to select all the options from drop down lists or check boxes. From Steve’s demonstration it appears that the process of building the interface is really painless. When he started showing it I was worried that the ‘logic’ behind the interface would be visual basic like but to my pleasant surprise it was just a matter of dragging and dropping. I know I’m doing this subject justification but just suffice to say that I think you’re really going to like it.

Another new feature that is of interest to me is the ability to convert a solid to sheet metal. In fact I’m working on a project now that could benefit from this. I’ve loaded SP0 on to my laptop for testing and to try this feature. Look for another post with my results.

Below are some pictures from the rollout:

our fearless leader

Keith Dacus of TPM / Greenville

Steve Ostrovsky of TPM / Columbia

Wes, Phil, Tim, Tom & Matthew

SolidWorks 2009 Solid to Sheetmetal

Initial Thoughts on DriveWorksXpress

2008-09-16T08:01:00.002-04:00

Thoughts on DriveWorksXpress
Although this is obviously a very powerful and useful tool as evidenced from all the demos and videos floating around on the WWW I have found some issues.

1. You can never find a tutorial or demo that does exactly what you are wishing to do. (Like how would anyone know what I want to do anyway?)
2. All the tutorials and examples that I’ve seen start at the DriveWorksXpress use. You really and truly need to be thinking DriveWorksXpress when designing the parts initially.
3. You can’t teach the logic of DriveWorksXpress in a tutorial. If you don’t have a grasp on the logic of what you are trying to do you will never get it to work. This is not a fault of the program but rather a fault in my brain.

I spent a total of 5 hours over the weekend trying to make a DriveWorks database to drive a metal cabinet design that we have. At some point yesterday I finally admitted defeat to myself. Please understand that the program does exactly what it is suppose to do and does it well. But from my experience I’ve learned a few things that will help me in the future. Oh and BTW when I say that I ‘admitted defeat’ it doesn’t mean that I’m giving up, it only means that I think I need to start the process of using DriveWorks earlier in the design cycle.

What I’ve learned:
1. You can take an existing design that you did over a year ago and build a DesignWorksXpress database around it. But be forewarned you better have a complete understanding of how your design works (no pun) and interacts with other parts in the assembly. This is where I am with my cabinet project.
2. Limit or eliminate arrays of features with dimensions that need to be driven. I had several arrays with only 3 elements in them. While I’m sure that DriveWorks could deal with them it’s one more dimension rule you will have to create. I’ve found that using ‘linked’ dimensions within the sketch to make multiple features works better.
3. In my original design I did a lot of in-context part creation in the assembly. This seems to cause problems. If trying to use DriveWorks on an existing assembly you might want to go back and break all the references making sure to track down any other parts that might reference the part you just broke the references to. This includes mates in the top level assembly.
4. Your directory where the assembly resides is going to get very cluttered with the new parts and assemblies you create. Make a copy of your directory before each ‘test’ run of DriveWorks. I used Pack and Go to make a flattened copy of all the components within the assembly.

Please understand that I don’t mean this to sound like I’m putting the product down. Heck I even know that eventually I could get this to work on the mentioned cabinet assembly. But I also know that if I had of stopped 3 days ago and went back and redid the cabinet with the intention of using DriveWorks I would have been ahead of the game.

Expect additional posts on this subject and eventually a working DriveWorksXpress assembly.

COSMOS is now Design Simulation

2008-09-12T09:44:00.001-04:00

COSMOS is now Design Simulation

At the September 11th WNC SolidWorks User Group Meeting Dana Parish from Central Florida gave an excellent presentation on the Who, What, When and Why of design simulation. I left with the feeling that this is something that should be in my CAD toolbox. Dana’s presentation really focused in on how the tools can help designers and engineers alike in their endeavors to design and build products in a cost effective manner. Dana’s partner, Ramesh Lakshmipathy showed us how the software worked using real world examples. One of his example files was from Precision Gear provided by our own Phil Behm. It was a housing that Precision Gear has cast overseas. Phil said it was designed in the old days when steel was cheap and the ‘When in doubt, make it stout’ finite element analysis was the preferred method. By running the design simulation tools on the housing Ramesh was able to trim 8 lbs from the part. And he did all this in about 30 minutes. He went through the process for us and I must say that it was impressive.

Today I’m up to my eyebrows in DriveWorksXpress. We have a perfect project for this application. Look around in your kitchen at the cabinetry and picture these made from #3 brushed stainless steel. They are used in a pharmaceutical laboratory. We have made the cabinets twice before and both time I was thinking that there must be a better way. The sizes and the configuration of the cabinets change based on the wall space available and their actual use. There are single door cabinets of various sizes but they could hinge on the left or the right sides. There are double door cabinets of different sizes and there are cabinets with door and drawers and some with just drawers. It’s really confusing since some parts will be the same for multiple cabinets and some will be the same except for a single hole…You get the idea. And if I’m not confused enough the shop guys really lose their minds when the assembly starts.

I’ve watched videos, read tutorials and worked through them. I talked to Michael Jolley last night and he gave me a few pointers. So as I told my boss this morning, it’s now down to me figuring it out as I do it. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Or not!

What ‘bout them Tarheels! Great win guys!

No politics spoken here!

2008-09-05T08:06:00.001-04:00

No politics spoken here!

Things are finally starting to calm down at the Cox household. The last few weeks have been a blur of activity. From refurbishing sixteen computers to trying to get the yard work done has been a struggle. There was some mention by my wife of having my nose in a computer screen for the last three weeks. But all that is finally behind me now. The Shelby HAMfest has come and gone and I managed to sell all the computers but three. I still have a bunch of 20” CRT monitors that are in excellent shape if anyone is interested…I will make you a deal on one or two or three or…

The HAMfest was great. The new location is better as far as the facilities but some of the older people were complaining about how spread out it was. If you have never been to an event like this I suggest you try one out. Whether you’re into HAM radio or computers you will find a bunch of people with like interests who are just dying to strike up a conversation. Last year I took my Commodore SX64 and a bunch of people stop by to reminisce about their Commodore 64 days. This year my brother took some token-ring switches and had similar results. BTW – neither the SX64 or the token ring gear sold but we did get a lot of traffic to our table because of them.

During the process of setting up the PCs for sale I learned a lot about Linux and in particular Ubuntu Desktop. I’m tempted to set up one of the left over machines in my house just to see if I can make it do all that I typically do on a Windows machine. With a little searching around the web and a bit of under the hood tweaking I believe that this can be a windows alternative. Excluding SolidWorks of course! In fact on the new build of my ‘regular’ desktop machine I installed OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. I’m wondering if there is a way to hook the OpenOffice spread sheet into SolidWorks instead of Excel, this will be my next project. I did temporarily install Outlook just to get my contacts imported. Does anyone know of an alternative that can sync your contacts with your pocket PC? I’m not worried about the email since I use Google’s Gmail almost exclusively now since I just found out that I can add my Pop3 accounts to it.

In response to comments made on some of the blog entries I would like to thank the ones who read and responded. The situation concerning the ‘limited user’ status on the CAD machines at Byers has now been lifted with yours truly being responsible for the computers in the CAD department. Whoever said that I should just keep bugging the IT manager about this was right.

Thanks for all the tips on the imported sheet metal part. I foresee someday SolidWorks recognizing a sheet metal part and making the necessary adjustments to the dumb solid on its own. This is what I meant by ‘Smarter SolidWorks’. I do wish that when you comment on the blog that you would leave enough information so that I will know who you are. I removed the requirement that you be logged in to comment to make it easier for all of ya’ll but please in the spirit of community tell me who you are.

Smarter SolidWorks

2008-08-21T13:33:00.009-04:00

It continues to amaze me the problem that Solid Modelers have talking to each other. Okay I can see where the curvy stuff would give problems but sheet metal? Come on guys this is as simple as dirt. I was sent a couple parasolid parts translated from SolidEdge the other day and they were both what I would consider to be simple. One of the parts had seven faulty faces that that SolidWorks could not repair. The whole ordeal makes me have a few questions.

Question #1: How do you get faulty faces in a sheet metal part? It wasn’t due to bad modeling practices since the part was created in the sheet metal module of SolidEdge and I know from experience that SolidEdge makes the user adhere to the same basic sheet metal rules that SolidWorks does such as uniform thickness and such.

Question #2: Why can I import a SolidEdge part file and an assembly file but not the sheet metal (.psm) file? The customer was able to translate it into a part file on his end but it didn’t help the situation anyway.

I even sent this part to my VAR’s application engineer and he wasn’t able to do anything with it other than suggest deleting the bad faces and add it back using the surfacing tools. He went on to say:

" I don't really have any good news for you, but translating 3D cad models is a big separate industry - for a reason. Modeling software file formats don't always like to work together, as you can see here.”

Wow that’s a news flash! Since I’m a little rusty on the whole face/surface thing I fell back to my old standby which is to insert the bad part into an assembly and then build a good part on top of it.

Question #3: Why did the part fail? Was it because there was a hem on the part that actually was closed completely flat against it face to which it was added?

Or was it because of the overlapping flange that does touch the opposing flange?

Or maybe it’s the lance & form that has no relief (which incidentally is how it is in the real world)?

It might be one or all of these that is causing the part to fail. But my point is that if we can’t translate other than by ‘dumb’ solids then some rules need to be followed on both ends. Why can’t all the CAD companies get together on some rules that govern sheet metal parts? Why can’t the importing modeler be a little smarter and recognize the face or even let me tell it that this is a sheet metal part and in turn it would know to adjust so that features can be recognized.

Now just to temper the bad with some good, go check out this video. I hope this works as well on my computer. Solid to Sheet Metal

Friday Fritters

2008-08-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

Okay it’s a strange title but as I start to write today I have no idea where I’m going. So hang on or jump off at any time!

One thing about SW2009 that really interests me is the Custom Properties tab and the ability to customize it. One thing that really irks me is when I have to go behind someone revising his drawings and find that he hasn’t filled in a single custom property. Hopefully this will make it easier to manage thus making him more apt to use them.

What’s going on in my life? I mentioned that we had replaced all the PCs at the company I work for. I struck up a deal with the owner where as I would remove all the old ‘junk’ and take care of a fitting disposal. This process included general cleaning (you’d be surprised at how filthy a PC can get) with 100PSI compressed air and several bottles of Mean Green Cleaner. Then I did a complete wipe of the hard drive using KillDisk and finally a re-install of an operating system. Most of the systems had COAs (certificate of authorization) for one version of Windows or another so they were set up again. I’m only going back as far as Windows 2000 Pro, anything older will get some flavor of Linux installed. So far I have four Dell Optiplex GX150s, two custom built CAD stations with Athlon 64 3400s, Quadro FX500s and 2GB RAM. There are a few more machines with Pentium 4s and then a slew of Microtel machines that have AMD Durons and 256MB RAM. The Microtels were bought with Lindows installed which was replaced with Win98. I’m not sure what to do with these machines. I’ve tried Xubuntu since it is a scaled down version of Ubuntu designed to run on low end hardware but I haven’t had much luck with it yet. I don’t have COAs for Win98 so that’s out of the question. Are there any suggestions from the hardware geeks out there?

I also have 15 20” Dell CRT monitors (anyone need a monitor?) that are stacked in my garage. Yeah it’s been a dirty hard job with late hours and no promise of any monetary reward but it has been fun. I already managed to sell the Optiplexs with monitors. One of the CAD workstations went to my co-worker who helped move all the stuff to my house. Some of the guys here at Byers have expressed interest in a computer and anything that is not sold will be going to the Shelby HAM Fest (which incidentally is being held in Dallas NC this year) on Labor day Weekend. But the sooner I get rid of all this stuff the sooner the wife will be speaking to me again. Wait a minute, let me think about that.

Thrown into the pile-o-junk will be a couple of SpaceNavigator PEs and one of the FX500 video cards so if you have any need for them or a 20” monitor leave a comment with contact information.
From the Wikipedia:
A fritter is any kind of food coated in batter and deep fried. The word comes from the Latin *frīctūra ("frying") by way of Old French and Middle English. It can refer to a dessert, a side dish or a main course food.
I hope you enjoyed your batter coated, deep fried side dish of useless verbage on this fine Friday. The only other question that begs to be asked…was it a desert, a side dish or a main course?

SolidWorks 2009 coming to blog near you soon!

2008-08-14T08:31:00.001-04:00

SolidWorks 2009 coming to blog near you soon!

Because everyone else is blogging constantly all about SW 2009 I’ve been hesitant to add my observations or opinions. In finality you will be the judge of how the new release works for you. But just so you know a little of what to expect in the new release here is a link to a list of links to blogs and youtube videos showing off and or lamenting the highlights of SolidWorks 2009.

http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/solidworks/reviews.htm

I can’t wait to get my grimy little hands on it!

Friday Strangeness

2008-08-01T12:38:00.000-04:00

Here’s a strange one:
I used the assembly feature hole wizard on an sub-assembly this morning. I place two sketch points to locate the holes while in the initial command. I then Ctrl-Tabbed back to the main assembly to make sure I was adding the holes on the correct side of the sub-assembly. Everything looked good so I edit the hole wizard sketch to add three more sketch points for all the holes I needed. No problem adding them but when I update I only see the original two holes I added. I played around with a bit but couldn’t get the remaining holes to appear. I finally gave up and did another hole wizard and included all the points I needed and it worked fine. I’m curious as to whether this is the case always or is it another ‘feature’?

Here’s another question for any config/design table experts out there. I have created a working design table that basically just uses some simple calculations to generate different lengths of tubing for use in another assembly. I don’t do configurations with design tables that often so please excuse my ignorance but I need to add back the custom property “description” to the table so that when inserted into a drawing it is more understandable. Is there a way to force SolidWorks to refresh all the parameters not just the newly added ones? If not can you provide me with the proper syntax to do this? I hope that I’m providing enough information for you to see what I’m trying to do.

Pallet Forming Tools

2008-07-30T10:42:00.002-04:00

An underutilized feature of SolidWorks by me is the “Pallet Forming Tools”. I have modified the ‘standard’ tools that ship with SolidWorks into the tools we have in our shop and in the modification process is where I have difficulty. We did take the available training at our VAR when we first switched over to SolidWorks but of course the current version of SolidWorks was 2001+ and I would suppose that a few changes have been made. But as I said I have modified some of the shipped tools into something we can use. The process is always trial and error. I make the changes I think need to be made and then insert the tool onto a part and see what happens. Here is the part that I have a problem with, if I see I need to make more changes and make them they are not reflected on the tool I already inserted. I have to delete the form tool and then insert it again. Am I wrong on this? Maybe this has been changed or maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing. I would think that somehow they be associated and update as such.

An update for anyone who interested in my weight loss attempt; I am now an official Weight Watcher Lifetime member. I reached my goal weight and maintained it for 6 weeks. Actually I’m having difficulty not losing any more weight… (I never thought I’d be typing that in my lifetime.) Was it worth it? I can say with a resounding YES it was. I feel much better, have more energy and don’t have the need to Lipitor or hypertension medication any longer. People will tell me that I’m looking good and I respond, “No I’m looking thinner…I’m still ugly!”

Am I supposed to be writing for this Blog?

2008-07-29T09:47:00.001-04:00

Am I supposed to be writing for this Blog?

No excuses, no explanation, suffice to say that I’m back now after an extended leave.

What’s bothering me today, the new IT department’s policies concerning administrator rights to my computer. Oops did I say ‘my computer’, I meant the computer that I’m attached to 9-1/2 hours a day five days a week.

A little background information is in order here. We all have shiny new workstations here at Byers. They are built to the hilt Dell machines with 4 GB RAM, fast SATA 2 drives and a mid-level Quadro video card. All this is connected to a ‘real’ Dell server with all the bells and whistles. During the install process I was given the administrator password so that I could get all the CAD/CAM software up and running on the machines in the engineering department. This involved fresh installs of SolidWorks and any other programs that we use in performing our jobs.

Everything was up and running and we were productive again and then I realized that I had forgotten to enable duplex printing on the OkiData printer. When I went to fix this problem I was informed by the computer that I must be logged in as the administrator. I then found out the password for this account had been changed and there was no way this information was going to be given to me.

I understand that there are users on our network who have no business with administrator rights. We’ve been down that road before, virus, malware and spyware being installed at the user’s spontaneous desire to click something in their web browser. But I’ve been an integral part of the migration to technology here. When I first started working here the company had recently acquired their first Numeric Control Punching machine. The programs had to be typed into a machine that punched a paper tape that was loaded into the machine controller. There was no CAD/CAM then. As one of the sheet metal mechanics on the shop floor it was my responsibility to manually draft out sketches of the parts in the flat so that the programmer could write the code on a yellow legal pad which was handed to one of the secretaries so that she could type the code into the paper punch tape machine.

When we finally did get our Applicon Bravo CAD/CAM system I was the one who of 3 persons who went through the training and the only one who actually caught on to the system. Not only did I do all the CAD work back then but I was also responsible for the system maintenance. The system was running VMS on Digital Equipment hardware. VMS makes all flavors of windows look like a piece of cake. I even wrote several programs in DCL (Digital Control Language) that managed the tasks of backups, restores and even file renaming of the DXF files to the 8.3 format which was needed by the machine controls.

I’m saying all this just to say that I really feel as if I’ve been ‘dumbed’ down. Heck, I can’t even delete unused icons on my desktop now! Forget about checking for new SolidWorks releases…I must be an administrator.

Yes, there was a problem here at Byers. There was unlicensed software floating around. The system we had for backing up our precious data was crap! People here were installing everything from NASCAR race day to Print Shop 1.0 with no control and no concern as to what was happening to the actual programs that were needed to perform their jobs. But to blanket all persons with the same restrictions is actually counterproductive to the persons who know how to do their job and how to adapt their computers to do it better and faster.

But if this is company policy then I will live with it. I will continue to do my job to the best of my ability with the equipment and software available to me. Will I be happy about it? I don’t think so…all these icons on my desktop are really bugging me!

Am I being a jerk about this? Let me know what you think. Are any of you trying to work under the same conditions? Let’s get some comments going!

SWUG meeting Thursday

2008-07-07T10:57:00.004-04:00

WNC-Asheville SWUG meeting July 10th
See the website for details.

I’ll be doing a ‘very’ short presentation on FeatureWorks and then the evening becomes what Wes calls ‘Open Mouse Night’. If you have any cool tips or tricks be prepared to show them off. Bring your files on a flash drive or CD-ROM. If you’ve never been to a meeting this would be a good laid back meeting to attend. We always have food (usually pizza) and good conversation. Get to know the people in the Asheville area who are using the same CAD software as you and experiencing the same issues using it. There will be some VARs represented at the meeting but they are banned from making any sort of sales pitch but they do have answers to a lot of the typical questions that come up.

You might have noticed a theme change on the website. It is a work in progress as I’m creating some new graphics to go with the theme. But the good news is that things seem to fit better in the boxes that with the old theme. I’m no website designer by any means and I do it so infrequently that I have to re-train myself every time I do make a change.
Here is the graphic I want to use as the header:

I'm now a CSWA!

2008-06-29T14:10:00.003-04:00

This is a special blog for me…CHECK IT OUT!

I know it’s only the associate exam but I’m still proud of it. I said a quick prayer before I started the test and I told God that if I passed I’d be sure to let everyone know that He is getting the glory. Thank you God for helping me remember, stay calm and stay awake.

If you have a free voucher to take the test remember that it expires tomorrow. Go ahead and take the test, yes it’s is a bit difficult and if I can do it you can too. A couple of pointers:

1. Two computers or at least a dual display, one for the exam and one for SolidWorks.

2. There might be questions on ComosXpress, but if you can build the models and assemblies fairly quickly you do have time to run an analysis and refer to the help to get the answers you need.

3. Note that some questions may require you to build a part or assembly and the part origin is given or it’s arbitrary. Pay attention or you won’t find your answer in the choices given.

That’s about all I can legally tell you about the test.

New Computer is now running but...

2008-06-27T10:28:00.002-04:00

I'm posting from the old machine now. It has been an interesting week which is why there have been no new posts. But to let everyone know how it's going here is an update.

The new Dell Precision T3400 is sitting on my desk right next to the old machine it will be replacing. Both computers are currently hooked up to the beautiful new 24" monitor. I can switch back and forth between the two computers with just a push of a button. But I do keep getting confused and moving the wrong mouse or typing on the wrong keyboard. I've been getting everything running on both new machines as I get time. SolidWorks is installed on both and I have a service pack 4.0 download queued up for 10PM tonight. Printer and plotter drivers are installed as well as Foxit PDF editor and Acrobat. Email is working but there are some issues with the wiring in the building which has my machine falling back to 10mb network speeds. Come to find out the new gigabyte switches won't fall back to 100 mb on CAT5 correctly. We verified this by running a 81' CAT6 cable on the floor from the switch to my machine this morning.

There you go, we are up and running but mostly still on the old hardware. At this rate we should be ready to go completely to the new machines by Tuesday...I hope!

Logitech MX Revolution…first impressions

2008-06-18T13:39:00.000-04:00

Logitech MX Revolution…first impressions

I have a new workstation so I decided that it was time to upgrade my trusty Trackman Wheel. Remembering what Philip Thomas said in a recent presentation, I looked for the mouse with the most buttons. The only self implied limitation was that it would have to be a Logitech mouse or trackball. Looking at the Logitech website I see that there are only 3 trackball styles available now. I’ve tried the cordless Trackman Optical before and found that it just doesn’t feel comfy in my hand. My daughter has a Trackman Marble and even thought I don’t cuss out loud I do write it down and sign my name to it every time I have to use it. So I’m left with the choice of going with another Trackman Wheel or switching over to a mouse. I decided to go with the latter.
The MX revolution arrived today and even though I’m not running on the new workstation yet I thought it might be good to start getting used to a mouse again so I hooked it up. It came with enough of a charge to start using it right out of the box. I installed the SetPoint software and I’m off to the races.
The mouse feels good in my hand, the buttons are placed in positions that are easy to locate and press. The wheels (yes wheels) roll very smoothly or with a ratcheting movement. The wheel on the top is your standard scroll up and down and side to side. I sacrificed the ratcheting movement so that a press of the wheel is now the middle button. There is a button behind the top wheel that by default initiates an internet search with the search engine of your choice. There are 2 more buttons above the thumb rest that are set as forward and back. The wheel that is controlled by your thumb is set by default to task switch between applications. The description of this button in the supplied help and instructions is incorrect, IMHO. It is described as a means to switch between documents (Ctrl-Tab) when in actuality it switches between applications (Alt-Tab). All of the buttons are customizable overall or per application. I added Solidworks.exe to the application list and went to work.
Right now I have the FORWARD button defined as ‘S’, the BACK button set as ‘Ctrl-Tab’. The thumb wheel can be defined as three functions as you can roll it forward, roll it back and press it. In SolidWorks I roll it forward for a fit to screen, press it for an Isometric view and roll it back for a normal to view. I’m trying to think of what I want the left and right tilt of the top wheel to do in SolidWorks. Anyone care to share how they have their mouse buttons programmed?
So far based on my limited use of the MX Revolution I can say that you might want to consider this. Even if you’re an old trackball man like me you can learn new tricks and enjoy the process.

New Dells, CSWA/CSWP and my garden?

2008-06-18T07:58:00.001-04:00

All the new computer equipment is here from Dell now...$70,000 worth. We set up one of the workstations and the 24” monitor is awesome. The installer will be here next week to get everything up and running. Note to myself: Don’t forget to do the SolidWorks license transfers.

My brother is a professional IT person. I spent last night helping (mostly watching) him fix a slew of problems at the company that my wife works at. What a mess! I just thought the network problems at Byers were bad. One of their servers is running Windows NT4 and only has a 6 GB hard drive.

If you have any thought of taking advantage of the free CSWP or CSWA test you need to be reminded that this offer ends on the 30^th. SolidProfessor has a course to help you prepare for it. See Matt’s blog on this subject for more info and the way to get 50% off the price.

I did my first harvest from the garden last night: 3 grape tomatoes, 4 zucchini and 2 crooked neck squash. I’ve been cutting basil and lettuce for weeks but this was the first real veggies to come from the garden. I believe I’m going to have a good crop this year. The squash and zucchini are loaded with blooms and I have little green tomatoes coming out of my ears. Another note to self: Don’t waste the garden space on strawberries; you must need an acre or more planted to get any amount at all.

What am I?

2008-06-13T08:39:00.002-04:00

Design or Modeling

I’m often asked if I’m a designer. My answer is always the same, NO! Just this morning the new estimator here at Byers’s asked me that question and I in turn asked him if he had read the quality manual yet. In which you will find my job description:

Identification of organizational structure and acquisition of resources which are necessary to achieve objectives. Meeting established goals for value and quality. Experienced in currently utilized CAD/CAM software and knowledgeable in current PC software and operating systems. Interacts with engineering staff. Duties include: generating necessary documents to meet the objectives. Responsible for documentation of prototypes, new designs, and technologies. Assists Sales with providing applications to assure customer satisfaction.

In other words my job is to document new designs…not generate new designs. But then I ask myself, do I design anything? I am usually given a drawing of a sheet metal part or assembly supplied by our customer. The design as far as function has already been done. But when I model the sheet metal parts that will be fabricated into the customer’s design I have to make decisions as far as how many pieces will be welded or fastened together to end up with the final product. I tend to make these parts self fixturing by using tabs and slots or Cleko clamp holes, does this qualify as design? Maybe it’s manufacturing design?

What about when the welder comes in and asks for a weld fixture to hold the parts in tolerance while he welds them together? I guess that is design, maybe not of a product but the tool used to make the product.

When you have been doing sheet metal for so many years you can generally look at a customer’s drawing and immediately see the individual parts that will be required to fabricate his design. Other times I will pull out my sketch pad and do a dirty sketch in an isometric view of how I picture the fabrication, there will usually be many eraser marks on this sketch as I refine the way I will end up modeling the parts. When I’m happy with the sketch I then fire up SolidWorks and start modeling the parts. Sometimes as individual parts brought together in an assembly file and other times only the main ‘wrapper’ will be drawn and located in an assembly file and then I will go into top-down mode to model the remaining parts. During this stage of the process is where my initial thoughts and sketches are further refined.

The final step is the documentation. I lay out the drawing views just like the customer’s drawing and dimension in the same manner also. This makes it easy to check my model against his design.

I guess my job does include some design elements but the final outcome of my work is a fabrication of someone else’s design.

Help! I’ve fallen down a hole wizard hole and I can’t get up!

2008-06-10T11:52:00.006-04:00

Help! I’ve fallen down a hole wizard hole and I can’t get up!

What is going on all of a sudden with my hole wizard holes? We first discovered this problem a few weeks ago. Here is the situation: We use the legacy hole option with in the wizard, why? Because it seems (based on our limited knowledge) that it is the easiest way to make a hole of a certain known diameter. We have been using the legacy hole for all types of holes such as c’bore, c’sink, etc. The only time we venture from the legacy hole is for threaded holes and if we need to know the proper clearance diameter for a given bolt. No fooling around with number or letter sizes; just type in the diameter you want and BAM! You have a hole. We have used the Hole Wizard in this manner almost since B.S. (Before SolidWorks) and it has worked great except the annotation will sometime include the quantity of hole but most times not. Then the problem started, my co-worker would make a change to the hole diameter and the flat pattern would not update correctly. Move the hole and the flat updated, change the diameter and nothing. We tried everything we could think of to no avail. The only work around was to edit the hole in the flat pattern configuration as well as the default configuration. One hole…two edits!

I posted to the SolidWorks Corp. user forum and got some suggestions from who I would consider a SolidWorks expert but none of the solutions worked. When I uploaded the files in question he was baffled as well. I finally emailed my VAR for some tech support and although very understanding he wasn’t able to pin point the problem either. We met up and discussed the situation some more at the SESWUW. The tech support guy told me that the ‘Legacy’hole was just that…there for legacy purposes and ‘maybe’ not fully supported. This actually made sense to me but now that I think about it, it doesn’t explain why we were just experiencing this all of a sudden. Since that time I’ve ran into the same problem on my install of SolidWorks also. It is true that I can change the hole to another type as a work around but should I have to?

Okay I typed all that to get to this: If I can’t depend on the legacy hole, can someone please advice the best way to model a hole, up to next, of a pre-determined diameter, that might or might not be a ‘standard’ size? And oh by the way I do know that I can check the ‘custom sizing’ box to enter the size but then the hole feature is named something that has nothing to do with the hole I want. I’m thinking that I must have fallen asleep during this portion of my SolidWorks training. Tell me what I'm doing wrong...Please.

Here is the link to the SolidWorks Forum from which you can grab the files to take a look at if you want: Hole Wizard Question

PIctures from SouthEastern SolidWorks User Workshop

2008-06-03T20:59:00.004-04:00

Here are the low quality pictures I took at the SouthEastern SolidWorks User Workshop. I didn't get permission so if I didn't catch your best side just let me know and I will remove the picture.

Here is Tony Cantrell the event organizer.

Here is Richard Doyle the SWUGN leader talking to Tony.

This is Darren Henry doing his Weldment Session

This is Matt Lombard showing us how to conduct a session while waiting on a SolidWorks update to install.

This is Philip Thomas the dumb solid expert!

Rodney Hall impressing the ladies!

Matt watching Rodney impress the ladies...

I promise this is the last time I will post cell phone pictures.

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 2

2008-05-31T17:53:00.003-04:00

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 2

I apologize for this being a day late. My excuse is that my brain shutdown last night at 5PM due to overload. The second day of the workshop was very intense for your friendly neighborhood blogger.

My first session of the day was Matt Lombard's presentation on Curvy Stuff. For someone who does sheet metal 99% of the time this was definitely uncharted territory. But I do have to say that I learned a lot and it makes me want to continue my studies in SolidWorks surfacing. Matt took us through the modeling of a pasta scoop which happened to be in his kitchen utensil drawer. We learned about projected curves, boundary surfaces, spline on a surface and the awesome fill surface. I have never used the fill surface command but it must be a really great tool since Matt was the first of two presenters to tout its usefulness.

Next I was in Steve Ostrovsky’s presentation on drawing templates and formats. Even though I knew the material fairly well Steve did point out some things that I could do in a more efficient manner than how I’m doing it now. This class was a hands on lab which invariably has problems with some of the participants not really being at the level of expertise that the material is geared for. I really feel for presenters when placed in this situation. But Steve did a great job of keeping everyone on track. On great tip I pick up here was how to do multi-line custom property descriptions on the drawing sheet format.

After the lunch break I attended Philip Thomas’ presentation on dumb solids. If you’ve ever sat in on one of Philip’s presentations you know what I mean when I say…WOW! Philip is hilarious and educational at the same time. He started out with a very informative history of CAD. Check out CADAZZ.com for some of the information he presented. Why the history lesson? It is necessary to know the history in order to understand the state of CAD interoperability today. We have different kernels, different philosophies and different ways of doing things among the various CAD software companies and even within the same company (Catia, SolidWorks). Philip pointed out that the difference between smart solids and dumb solids is just the amount of information embedded with the solid. He showed several examples and various ways of tackling the errors that the dumb solid might have. I picked up on some ideals that will help me the next time I get a Pro/E file I need to work with in SolidWorks.

And if one class with Philip wasn’t enough…I then attended his presentation on Keyboard Shortcuts. This session was more laid back that the previous one. Philip's Presentation came down to these pointers:

Quit banging on the keyboard – get a mouse with as many programmable buttons as you can remember and then program them.
Undo is Great – But cancel is better! – when you really mess up a sketch DON’T release the left mouse button, press and hold the right button, now release the left button and finally the right button. You sketch is back like it was before.
Wrap will split multiple faces in one go and there other ways to extrude text.
Don’t forget Cut-Sweep Solid.
The ‘parametize’ tool is very powerful, use the Dim Expert.
Make your presentations look good with RealView.
Know when to Eject! He gave us a .bat file that ends all SolidWorks processes.
Personalize – use the API. Philip showed us some really cool things that can be done with a little bit of VBA programming and Excel.

Thanks to all the presenters for sharing their knowledge with all of us attendees. I hope to someday make you proud enough to say, “Look at that guy go! I taught him everything he knows”.

All and all the 1^st SouthEastern SolidWorks User Workshop was a great success. I certainly hope that this will become a yearly event. Tony, I’m giving you a standing ovation as I type.

Pictures may be coming next…

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

2008-05-29T21:06:00.002-04:00

Southeastern SolidWorks User Workshop: Day 1

Let me say first off that the location is ideally suited for this type of event. Thanks to Midlands Technical College for hosting the event. Tony Cantrell has done a great job on the organization of the event, thanks Tony. And thank you SolidWorks Corporation for the briefcase (but I wish I had chosen the backpack).

The day started more or less around 7:30 with a breakfast that included grits, biscuits, gravy, eggs, sausage and bacon. It looked and smelled awesome…I had already eaten so I can’t review the taste of the food. One of the great things about these events is the people you meet and the things you learn from them. I met Mary who in recent days has been trying to learn AutoDesk Inventor in order to complete a project that the customer requires in that format. Listening to her grief over Inventor makes me appreciate SolidWorks even more. I also met a man who teaches SolidWorks at a local High School. From this conversation it is evident that SolidWorks is really trying to have a positive effect on education.

At 8:30 we all gathered in an auditorium for the general welcome session. Tony said a few words and turned the program over to Richard Doyle. Richard did his SolidWorks community presentation going over all the available content on the Customer Portal. He went over some of the content that is on SolidWorks Labs page of which the new Blueprint Now sounds interesting. It allows you to edit DWG files online; I will check this out for a future blog.

The next session I attended was entitled 3DConnexion Space Pilot. I’ve been using a 3D controller since 2000 but I’ve been experiencing problems getting used to the new Space Navigators we bought to replace our no longer supported SpaceBall 4000FLXs. I was hoping to be able to get some pointers or ask some questions about the configuration of the new devices to be more like the old controllers. There was two things wrong with this session…the presenter was a no show and there wasn’t Space Pilot anywhere in sight. But Tony filled in quiet well and I did manage to win the drawing for one of the Navigators.

The lunch buffet consisted of a nice salad, turkey, beef patties, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. I can state that what I ate was very good. There might have been some dessert also but I tried not to notice that.

Session #2 for me was weldments which was excellently presented by Darren Henry. He started off with a PowerPoint but quickly got away from that and actually showed us all that you can do with weldments and how to do them. Since 3D sketches are a prerequisite for weldments I picked up much needed education on those also. Thanks Darren, good job.

The last session of the day was Drawing Tips & Stuff by the overworked (but seeming to love every minute) Richard Doyle. This presentation was full of things that I will be able to apply as soon as I get back to work. I ended up with a page and a half of notes, which is a lot for me. My TIP OF THE DAY comes from this session: When you have a note that mistakenly got attached to a drawing view, in other words the note moves when the drawing view is moved, simply select the note, Ctrl-X, make sure no view is active and do a Ctrl-V. Your note is back and it is not attached to anything.

I'm excited and looking forward to tomorrow's session. I'll let you know how that goes.

SolidNest by SIGMANEST

2008-05-28T07:22:00.001-04:00

SolidNest by SIGMANEST

The presentation of SolidNest went on as scheduled with Arie Brown arriving at our facility a few minutes before 9 AM. After we rounded up all the persons who needed to see the presentation and got the conferencing computer set up Arie got started with an overview of what we would be seeing.

Through the magic of the internet and conference calls Chuck Willis joined us and proceeded to show us all about SolidNest. Here is what I picked up on:

1. SolidNest is a Gold Partner with SolidWorks…what does that mean? This is taken from the SolidWorks Website:

Certified Gold Products – Over 50 fully-integrated add-on software solutions from SolidWorks and its Solution Partners provide single-window, fully associative integration. With these products, all software work together using the same design data and changes are updated automatic across all applications.

This all is true, the program runs inside of SolidWorks and it is associative with the parts that are to be nested and processed. At Byers now, the CAD / Engineering department (that would be Tim and I) model the parts, produce fully dimensioned drawings and save a DXF file of the flat layout of the part to be punched or laser cut. Once that DXF file is saved the association with the model is broken. Any changes made to anything makes it necessary to save a new DXF file and re-generate the necessary Numeric Control (NC) code needed by the machine tools. One slip up and we’re making scrap.

SolidNest eliminates the DXF file. Instead of feeding DXF files to another program that generates the NC code you actually process the flat layout configuration within SolidWorks. The program code for individual parts is generated or the code for an entire nest is generated. If a part is changed the nest shows rebuild errors and you know that the code must be reposted. This associative processing is what convinced us to take the time to watch the presentation. Based solely on what I saw I would have to say that this works great.

2. If you have an existing store house of legacy 2D DXF files you would have to load them into SolidWorks and do a base-extrude to add some thickness to be able to process them with the SolidNest program. At first I thought that this would be a drawback but upon further thought I realized that SolidNest is smart enough to know that only like thicknesses and materials can be nested on the same sheet.

3. Yes, a seat of SolidWorks is required on each machine that needs to run SolidNest…duh! But they will sell you an OEM version at a reduced cost (no details on price). I knew this would be true but and it bothers me not from a price stand point but from the point that we are putting the ability of making changes to our models into the hands of people that usually don’t have anything to do with SolidWorks.

4. The laser programming portion of the software was pretty much typical with some additions that made our resident chief laser programmer very happy. One was the sheet remnant library which looked to be great. All the standard stuff like grain direction locking and such is in the program. We could also tell from talking with Chuck that he knew the ins and outs of laser processing which also impressed us. Chuck went through the whole process of building a nest and generating the code and the reports.

5. We were also shown the punch portion of SolidNest and taken through that process as well. I’m usually the one who does the punch programming using our current software so I watch this with maybe more interest than the laser programming. The functionality was not much different from what I’m using now but the familiar interface would make it so much easier to work with. The way it handles forming tools was an improvement over our current software. It is important to note that all the features in a model are available within SolidNest so the original sketches used to model the forming tool is used to locate and orient the punch hit.

Of the five guys attending from Byers the consensus was that SolidNest is a product worth looking at when and if we decide to make a change. Chuck and Arie did a great job on the presentation, thanks guys. I think we all see the advantage of a common interface in which to work. The only drawback and disappointment to us is the fact that SigmaNest has nothing for 5-Axis programming; in fact after more research on our part it seems there is not a Gold Partner solution for 5-Axis laser programming. If anyone knows different please leave a comment.

Look for the next post tomorrow night as I will be reporting from the SouthEast SolidWorks User Workshop. If you’re there be sure to look me up.

SolidNest Demonstration

2008-05-22T08:22:00.002-04:00

The ‘CAD guys’ here at Byers will be watching a sales pitch for SolidNest this morning. I update the blog later with what I learn…

Have a good day.

Notes from Matt's Presentation

2008-05-20T08:24:00.002-04:00

Since Matt mentioned it I now feel obligated to post some of my notes from his presentation at last week’s user group meeting. I started to just scan the page I took the notes on but I can’t let just anyone see my ‘creative’ doodles until I get the copy write on them. I hope you all are not expecting much…

You can create planes within a 3D sketch. This is how you get the feature count down when competing in a modeling contest. This means you can create the geometry for multiple cuts / extrudes from different planes. Of course all the cuts or extrudes must go in the same direction. The example Matt demonstrated would have been 4 or 5 separate features (the way I model parts) compressed to one.
Turn on the View ports when sketching in 3D. Add the 4-viewport button to a toolbar. With the 4 view ports you can start a line in one view, click the endpoint in another view and etc. This a great visual aid when doing 3D sketches for routing.
To constrain a point or endpoint, dimension from the 3 standard planes.
Create a plane parallel to the screen view. Rotate the view to where you want it. Start a 3D sketch; draw 3 points at random on the screen. Constrain them to be coincident (3 points right on top of each other). Break the relations and then move the 3 points apart. Exit the sketch and create a plane using the 3 points. This works because when you move a point it only moves in x-y relative to the screen view, cool stuff.
I was able to ask my question: If 3 points can define a circle and 3 points can define a plane, why can’t a circle define a plane? This is possible in the real world but not straight up in SolidWorks. I would think it would be an option on the reference plane creation dialogue box. But Matt explained that you can do it with 3D Sketches. You simply start a 3D sketch, place 3 points on the circular edge where you want the plane and then use the 3-point plane creation.
Matt also talked about the difference between the old ‘layout sketch’ and the new SolidWorks feature, Layout Sketch.
We also discussed the mistake that we’ve all made when working within an assembly. Forget to change to edit part mode and just start sketching on a face and expect the resulting feature to be placed on the part at the part level. And if there was anyway to ‘move’ this feature to the part level. That’s all I can say about that!

There was much more covered in the meeting these are the things that made an impression on me. I might have gotten more out of it but my sinuses decided to go into convulsions in the middle of the meeting and I was struggling to maintain control with an over used handkerchief I just happened to have in my back pocket. What did you remember and will you share it by leaving a comment?

Base Extrude Sketch Visibility

2008-05-19T13:12:00.002-04:00

Base Extrude Sketch Visibility

What’s going on here? Is this a new feature in SW2008 or just a bug and can we really tell the difference between the two?

On both of the installs here the visibility of the base extrude's sketch toggles on by itself. We will turn if off and then a few steps down the road it will back on again. This is really annoying when you have an assembly of several parts and they are all performing this feature (I’m sure it’s not a bug) seemingly at random.

My question to the readers of this is: Are we the only ones experiencing this handy new feature? If not, has anyone found a way to keep this from happening?

After last weeks user group meeting I was left with the feeling that I’ve been missing out on some functionality available in SolidWorks just because of my failure to embrace 3D sketches. I just started reading the SolidWorks Surfacing and Complex Shape Modeling Bible; it is my hope that when I get to Chapter 4 a light bulb will turn on and I’ll finally feel comfortable with the concept. How do you rate your 3D sketch comprehension? See the new poll…

3D sketches, Windows 7, and TGIF

2008-05-16T06:45:00.002-04:00

First things first, as usual Matt Lombard was exceptional last night. He is the type of guy you want to hang around with just hoping that some of his expertise will rub off on you. The results of our first modeling contest dictated that our members as a whole needed help with 3D sketches, so on the fly Matt changed his hints & tips presentation into a seminar on 3d sketches. This guy is awesome; if he wasn’t married he’d be meeting my oldest daughter! Keep watching this space for more detailed info as I try to make sense of the few notes I took.

A few blogs ago I discussed Windows XP versus Vista. For all you who are still riding on the XP bandwagon (that would be me) you will want to read this:

Keep XP fresh until Windows 7 Arives

The computer and network upgrade process at Byers Precision is proceeding with some urgency now. In the last few weeks we have had a rash of computer and server issues that has led to at least 100 hours of lost work…that we know of. We’ve been in contact with Dell and had one of their 3^rd party evaluators out for site inspection. Our workstations were hand built about 4 years ago using what we thought were quality components, not top of the line mind you but highly rated for their price. But as with all things they break. We had all the info we needed to proceed with an order to Dell when the owner decides that maybe we ought to talk to HP also. The gentleman in charge of putting all this together was very upset to say the least.

Successful Blogging

2008-05-15T08:52:00.003-04:00

Successful Blogging

I received the June PC Magazine the other day and it is another excellent issue. There are 501 tips in this issue that cover everything from cell phones to server setup. You will want to find and purchase this issue, I’m sure you will find something in it that will be of use to you.

Reading the section of tips concerning Blogging I came across tip # 366. Post early – and often. This tip goes on to say that while it’s not a great idea to post simply for the sake of posting, even the best-written blogs have trouble retaining readers with infrequent posts.

Okay, guilty as charged…I will now attempt to repent from my sinful ways. Keep checking this blog as it will be updated at least every other day unless something catastrophic happens to me (or my computers). Another tip says to ask questions in your posts so that the audience will be more apt to participate. So you can expect some questions and I will expect some answers. For example, here is question #1:

In SolidWorks 3 points can define a circle and 3 points can define a plane so why can’t a circle define a plane? Is this a geometry thing or a SolidWorks thing?

I don’t know the answer to this question hopefully someone out there can answer it. I had the need to do this yesterday and I had to fall back to measuring the distance from one of the standard planes to the circle and do an offset plane, it worked in this case but what if the 8 digits that the measure tool shows wasn’t enough?

Have a great day and I’ll see you tonight.

SOLIDWORKS USER GROUP MEETING TONIGHT

2008-05-15T08:18:00.002-04:00

SOLIDWORKS USER GROUP MEETING TONIGHT

If you are in the Western North Carolina / Asheville area you will want to be at this meeting. Tonight’s presenter will be the highly esteemed Matt Lombard. The following BIO is from the back cover of his newest book, SolidWorks Surfacing and Complex Shape Modeling.

“Matt Lombard is an independent SolidWorks consultant. Because of his popularity with SolidWorks user groups and through his SolidWorks Web site and online forums, Matt has built a reputation as a go-to resource for everything SolidWorks. He also serves on the SolidWorks User Group Network committee.”

Check out the WNC-SWUG website for the agenda and directions. It might be too late to get in on the Bar-B-Q but if you show up before I'm done with my plate I'll be happy to share.

See ya'll tonight!

Hollywood’s Vision of Future CAD

2008-05-06T07:17:00.001-04:00

Hollywood’s Vision of Future CAD

I’m not one who frequently goes to the movies but since my wife and I had a gift cards given to us we decided to catch a flick last night. We went and saw Iron Man. I’m not going to discuss the story go see it yourself. However there is one scene that I will mention as it does relate to CAD.

In the lead character’s workshop we see Tony Stark designing the second generation of the Iron Man armor. He is standing in front of a bank of computer monitors on which is displayed several windows of technical information in what appears to be some sort of design software. Tony merely points at a window showing a CAD model of the suit and drags the window from one monitor to another and finally to a large table like surface. I’m thinking, oh great here is the Microsoft tie in using their ‘Surface’ technology but then I see the model actually take on a 3D holographic appearance that Tony manipulates with his bare hands. In another scene Tony actually inserts his arm into one of these holographic models to test form, fit and function. WOW!

Even if you’re not a fan of movies based on comic books you might want to check out Iron Man just to see one vision of what CAD design software might look like in the future. Can anyone say SolidWorks 2010?

What's Going On Today?

2008-05-02T13:41:00.003-04:00

After a rather hectic two weeks of constant projects needing attention I finally caught up and I now have a well deserved break. I still had a few things on my to-do list but I’m knocking them off one by one.

The first thing was to get Matt’s New Surfacing Bible ordered. If you haven’t ordered yours then get over to his site now!

Second thing to do was to talk to my boss about the upcoming Southeastern SW User Workshop. He was receptive to the idea of me going when I told him that I would be taking the wife for a weekend getaway and would pay for half the cost myself. Now I just have to figure out what’s to do in Columbia, South Carolina. I’m sure the wife will find somewhere to shop during the day when I’m in session. Now that’s a scary thought! And then there’s always the zoo which I hear is top notch. Does anyone have any recommendations for night life and a Saturday outing in the area? I still need to register and reserve the hotel room. I’m sure the wife will have some input on the hotel. It appears that nice hotels in the area are far and few between. This observation is based on the reviews I’ve read online, maybe someone has some personal experience in the area they will share.

If you’ve never been to a SW summit or a workshop then I urge you strongly to consider going to this one. The line up of speakers is awesome and I can say from personal experience that you will learn a few things to take back to your job that will make you more productive. Sell it this way to your boss and I’ll see you there…

Assembly or Not

2008-05-01T06:58:00.001-04:00

Assembly or Not

Being a job shop we regularly receive CAD files from customers. Even though the customer has the best intentions what we usually get runs the gambit from laughable to utterly useless. Every now and then a situation merits mention…

One customer sends us SolidWorks assembly files, parts files and drawing files using the pack and go feature. These parts are usually a sheet metal part with some PEM hardware installed. You would think it would be a simple matter to load their sheet metal part, apply the ‘Byers’ sheet metal standards, unfold and BAM! We would have a usable flat pattern for our production. Dream on!

The same customer and even the same engineer will do things differently on each and every part. One time we will get an assembly file that contains the sheet metal part and the PEM hardware mated up nicely and then the next time we will get a part file with the PEM hardware extruded onto the sheet metal. This is easy enough to deal with but we still have to generate an assembly drawing for our contract review process and there is always an issue with the hole diameter for the associated PEM hardware.

Some of our customer’s are concerned about what they give us being useful but even though I’ve talked to this customer about the problem they refuse to adopt any kind of standard.

I guess I’m more perturbed when the problem files we receive have been modeled in SolidWorks. I find myself thinking, “Why don’t they take a training class at their VAR?” I tend to think that if they had the proper training then some of these problems would go away. Does one absolutely have to be trained by a SolidWorks instructor? No. Would it be to their benefit? Yes. Would it be to my benefit? Most definitely!

The Power of a Blog

2008-04-23T07:20:00.003-04:00

The Power of a Blog

If you follow Matt’s Blog you have seen the power blogging at its best. What is ‘Power Blogging’? It is blogging that causes change. Matt voiced an opinion about a SolidWorks Corporation practice, we commented, SolidWorks listened and the practice was changed. As Matt points out it wasn’t necessarily only what he wrote but the reaction from us, his readers and users of the software.

You might have seen on the news in the last few days about the woman’s blog that tells all the crimes her ex-husband committed while in the armed forces. I also read that somewhere about a blog being shutdown by lawsuits from a party named in the blog.

If you listen to Twit (This Week in Tech) you have heard the panelists discussing the validity of blogs as reliable news sources. And recently it’s been all about Twitter which is blogging on a minute by minute basis. Is the information presented in blogs to be taken as news, opinions or entertainment?

To pull all these thoughts together I have but one comment; as bloggers we need to use this new found power responsibility, and as readers we need to carefully glean what we read separating fact from fiction and rants from legitimate concerns.

Friday's Random Thoughts

2008-04-18T08:31:00.002-04:00

Random Thoughts

In the May issue of PC Magazine on page 87 there is an article telling how to revert a Windows Vista install to Windows XP. As of right now the article is not on the website so you have to pick up the magazine to get the details. According to the article XP is noticeably faster than Vista on the same hardware. And with the upcoming release of service patch 3 XP will be even faster but the same can’t be said of service patch 1 for Vista. So if what I’m reading is true you might want to consider staying with XP until Microsoft makes Vista better and if you already have Vista installed it is good to know that there is a way to revert back to XP.

What do you think of the Open Office Suite? I loaded it on a PC that I was rebuilding for a friend and the new version looks great. It would appear to do whatever I would need to do with an office product including Microsoft Office compatibility. What I’m wondering and hoping that someone has an answer for; is whether or not the Calc product can be made to work with SolidWorks like Excel does now. This is the only reason I can think of for me to have Microsoft office on my system. Surely someone has researched this... When a company is looking to replace twenty five PCs with new ones the cost of MS Office is substantial!

Speaking of SolidWorks; I used the Pro/E translator for the first time yesterday. It actually worked fairly well once I had the originator of the file remove all the fillets on the part. There were two features that the converted could not handle, a simple revolve and a rib but the sketches were converted so it was easy to correct.

28 days and counting until Matt makes his appearance at the WNC/Asheville SolidWorks User Group Meeting. Thursday May 15 is the night. I think Tom Wilson will be firing up the BBQ to provide us with ribs or chicken but the real highlight of the evening will be Matt’s presentation. Plan to be there!

Running on empty

2008-04-16T07:33:00.001-04:00

Running on empty

If you haven’t noticed I will fill you in. It seems that I’ve hit a sort of writer’s block. I’ve been racking my mind to come up with things to write about the last few days. I perused the engineering magazines that came in last week thinking I would find some ideas but nothing interested me enough to write about. If there is anyone interested in doing a guest blog let me know.

We have a project I just started working on at Byers this week. It could be an interesting project if we ever get enough design parameters to get going on it. But due to our confidentiality agreement I can’t really write much about it. Suffice to say that a rather large international company has bought out another company and is in the process of moving the manufacture of the company’s product to the US. Our part in all this is to reverse engineer the handling systems to US standards. Because of the scope and the time limits involved we will be bringing in outside engineering to assist.

One thing that is going on here that might interest only me is the possibility of major computer and network infrastructure upgrades. Our in house IT head has been discussing our options with Dell. This will be the 1^st time since the Digital Equipment days that we are looking to one vendor for all our IT needs. Most of the PCs here don’t need to be CAD capable but with these upgrades the basic PCs will be more powerful that our current CAD stations. The workstations will be Dell Precisions built up with good quadro video cards and 4GB ram. Like I said, I’m excited! The one thing I’m not excited about is the fact that management is leaning towards Vista over XP. Their reasoning is that we will have to make the change eventually so we might as well do it now. Being a guy who reads all the computer magazines and listens to the tech podcasts I can say true fully that this scares the crap out of me.

Is there anyone out there using Vista? What’s the verdict?

What’s on your SolidWorks World iPod?

2008-04-14T08:24:00.003-04:00

What’s on your SolidWorks World iPod?

I’m sure that all of you know by now that all SolidWorks World 2008 attendees received a special edition iPod Nano with the SolidWorks logo laser etched on the back. You might also know that it was pre-loaded with video podcasts that all had something to do with SolidWorks. I watched my first and last of these podcasts on the flight back to North Carolina. I’m sorry but the screen is just too small for captured video from a SolidWorks session.

Yes, I know with the right cabling I’d be able to watch the video on my television but why bother when I can go to any internet connected computer and watch the podcasts there. So I’m left with a dilemma, what can I put on the iPod? I was skeptical about iPods and iTunes in general, I mean I figure I’m already in bed with Bill Gates do I really want Steve Jobs to join us? But I went ahead and took the plunge and installed iTunes on my desktop computer. Actually the experience was very pleasant, after playing around with iTunes and letting it add my existing music library which is on a homebuilt NAS running FreeNAS I was sold on it. It was then just a matter of loading up the Nano with stuff I will listen to.

The first step was to remove all the SolidWorks podcasts which I did save so that I could watch them later. This was all done within iTunes. I then loaded up on some music from my library. My music tastes are very diverse for example right now I have Pink Floyd, Allan Parsons, Paul McCartney, Vangelis, Pablo Cruise, Mike Oldfield, Simon & Garfunkel, Chicago, Third Day, Jars of Clay and more.

The music is fine but sometimes when I walk I rather listen to talking or reading to pass the time. So I listen to several audio podcasts, TWIT (This Week in Tech) is usually very entertaining and informative. Leo Laporte leads a guest panel in discussion of the week’s tech news. My favorite panelist is John, that’s a crock of crap, Dvorak. I also enjoy another podcast called X-Minus One. This podcast is old-time Sci-Fi radio shows by the same name. Some of the classic authors are represented here, Asimov, Bliss and others.

There are a few video podcasts that are suited for the small screen of the Nano. One that comes to mind that I watch when I get a chance is Mahalo Daily. These are brief informative and entertaining podcasts that cover a variety of subjects. You can watch them in as few as three minutes.

My opinion of Apple and iPods has been changed by the Nano. Don't get me wrong I never would have bought one but now that I have one I find that I use it every day. I purchased one of the little FM transmitters that allow me to listen to the Nano in the truck through the radio. While this is not perfect it works great for the talk show type podcasts. I find myself longing for a better solution for music though.

There is a vast amount of free media out there for you iPod; I’ve only scratched the surface. Do you have a favorite that you will share with us? Leave a comment.

StrokeIt?

2008-04-09T15:20:00.001-04:00

StrokeIt

No you have not stumbled onto some obscene blog. StrokeIt is the name of a program I just found by Googling ‘mouse gestures’. If you’ve been reading the blog you might have seen the posting on things I liked in other CAD programs I’ve used. In the Applicon Bravo3 software we had mouse gestures and since I couldn’t think of a thing to write about today I decided to see there was anything out there that could give me the same experience now.

I down loaded StrokeIt from http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/. The install was easy other than the required reboot to start the program. StrokeIt is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use. Individual licenses are available for $10. But try it out for free and see what you think.

After the install and the printing of a handy tutorial off of the website I was programming StrokeIt to do some neat stuff in SolidWorks. Now I can draw a ‘W’ (for Whole) and a ‘F’ keystroke is transmitted to SolidWorks and you zoom to fit. I also did the ‘S’ key which is starting to get worn out on my keyboard and I also did a ‘M’ for measure. I actually had to add a hotkey for this one to work.

You draw the characters by holding the right mouse button and drawing the letter. You actually see a blue line being drawn on the screen which is better than the Bravo software where you did mouse gestures blind. It takes a bit of practice to get the character drawn so that it is recognized and so that you can do it quickly. If I remember correctly the DEC VMS Windows mouse was faster at this that my Logitech trackball. But anyway it might be something you like.

Follow ups to some of my posts

2008-04-08T07:29:00.004-04:00

Follow ups to some of my posts

Thanks to Matt Lombard and Wes Cobb some people are actually reading the blog. So now it has evolved from just a brain exercise on my part to something I ‘almost’ feel obligated to try to do every day. I really do have a whole new respect for bloggers in general and especially those that consistently provide informative and fresh information and not just a bunch of links to stuff they found on the web. Believe me this is work, I enjoy it but it is still work. My commitment to you, my readers, is to write about CAD in general and SolidWorks in particular. I may seem to digress from this from time to time but be assured if you look deep enough you will find the connection. I also commit to only write about what I know; this is why my posts are so short. I might be wrong in what I say or just ignorant of something, that’s where you can help me out by leaving a comment correcting me. I will learn and someone else might learn also.

One of my posts that has generated interest is this one:

SolidWorks and WeightWatchers

Matt refers to it on his on blog:

Blogging for Dollars

Read them and post some comments either on this blog or Matt’s.

I was corrected by an anonymous commenter on this post:

SolidWorks Import/Export

I tried installing the Autodesk Inventor View yesterday and it does work. I was able to import the Inventor file into SolidWorks. Here is the page with the download:

Autodesk Inventor View

You do end up with a ‘dumb’ imported solid but that is better than nothing. It was interesting to note that the two files I tested this on could not be opened in the viewer itself. The error seems to indicate that the database of the parts needed to be updated to the current Inventor version. No comment for fear of being extremely flamed by Inventor users…

Out Sourcing hits close to home

2008-04-07T15:01:00.000-04:00

Out Sourcing hits close to home, kind of…

We been hearing the horror stories but I’ve tended to think that this will affect someone and else not me. And even though I’m not actually affected by this occurrence it is a lot closer to home than I like.

At Byers Precision some of our business is 5-axis laser cutting. We take a customer’s stamped part and trim the outside and add any necessary holes or cutouts that may be required. In the last year we have been doing prototype work for a large company that will remain unnamed. They have been sending us models created in Unigraphics that we import in SolidWorks and do the necessary transformations so that an IGES files can be exported which is imported into the CAM software that actually runs on top of Catia. (I feel a blog about a universal CAD format coming on.)

The tangency lines of these models are important to us since we use them to line up the model with our model of actual stamped blank. This last set of model did not have any tangency lines in them. We tried all the tricks we know of to get them to show up in SolidWorks to no avail. Finally we called the customer and through a slip of his tongue we found out that the models were created in India. Luckily he knew enough about Unigraphics that he was able to correct the problem and re-send the files. But it makes you wonder what would have happened if he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

I told my co-worker that maybe we need to start working on our Apu Nahasapeemapetilon accent. He then reminded me that neither of us cared for the Indian food at the SolidWorks World 2008 Block Party. I guess that Wal-Mart greeter job is looking better and better.

What the Future Holds for CAD?

2008-04-04T07:58:00.002-04:00

What the Future Holds for CAD?

Next time you have some spare time sit down and think about CAD in general. Where do you think it’s going? What will be the next big thing? How many ‘new’ ways to we need to draw lines, circles & arcs?

I think that feature sets will continue to get larger and larger because this is what sells. This is what drives companies to switch from one program to another. But I wonder sometimes how much more stuff we need.

Being of a sheet metal mind set; I would like to see more emphasis place on this feature set. Square to round, cones and other transition wizards that resulted in ‘real’ flat patterns would really be nice. Also more latitude in what can be unfolded would be great. Just yesterday a customer sent me a ProE file that SolidWorks couldn’t unfold but ProE could. The part had fillets that were partially in the ‘bend areas’. We see this situation often and can’t understand why one CAD program can unfold it but SolidWorks can’t. But in fairness, I’m sure that the reverse is true also.

When I think about the user interface I realize that we have a hint of what’s to come by just looking at SW 2008. We will see more and more of this ‘heads up’ type interface in the coming years. Speaking of that, why isn’t the measure tool on the left click pop-up menu? That just seems natural to me.

Picture if you can the current interface evolving even more over the next few releases…now combine that with the voice command interface and maybe even the mouse gestures I mentioned in the last blog. Now we’re getting somewhere! Now imagine, if you can, a pair of glasses that you put on when you sit down to your computer that had eye tracking like the military uses. Instead of scroll bars you would just move your eyes from side to side and up and down. Need to rotate the part? Verbally say rotate and move your eyes in the direction of rotation. Far fetched? Not really the technology is already available.

What do you think about the future of CAD? Post some comments, it's even easier now. You don't have to register. Right now I'm not even moderating them so please keep them clean.

Thanks go out to Matt for adding this blog to his Blogroll. If you want some really useful SolidWorks info and commentary instead of my drivel check it out at

http://dezignstuff.com/blog/

What’s next for CAD?

2008-04-03T08:05:00.002-04:00

What’s next for CAD?

As I consider this question I can’t help but think back to some of the neat features I’ve seen and used in other CAD programs. So before I address the future features that CAD programs might have I will digress to my past CAD history another day and try to remember some of the favorite things in programs I’ve used.

In the Applicon Bravo3 software we had mouse gestures. Hold down a mouse button and draw a ‘Z’ on the screen and you zoomed to that location. Draw a ‘C’ to center the view at the point where you drew the ‘C’. Draw an ‘F’ to fit the screen. There were many more and you could even create your own gestures.
Also in the Bravo3 software there was an interface programming tool called ‘Flexible Interface Tool’ or FIT. It must have been very easy to use as I remember writing several programs. I wrote programs to generate the flat layout of sheet metal cones and square to round transitions. I even wrote a game that ran inside of the CAD program. I tried to duplicate these programming feats in Autolisp and DCL and most recently VBA but either I’ve gotten too old to learn or I just can’t grasp the new programming languages.
In AutoCAD, I really liked typing the commands using their alias. I was faster at this than my co-workers trying to find the correct icon. I know this really old school and the closest thing we have now is the keyboard shortcuts which are okay but I really do miss the command line.
In SolidEdge from the start we could save a dxf of the flat pattern from the sheet metal environment. You didn’t have to place the flat on a drawing view and then do a save-as. I am glad to see that SolidWorks finally has this ability.
When we switched to SolidWorks we also acquired the 3Dconnexion spaceballs. They have revolutionized the way I do CAD.

These are just a few of the things I can thing of on the fly…Share your thoughts. I’ve always wished that somehow we could put together all the best things from the different programs and make a new CAD program. We could call it:

Bravo! Auto Solid Works with an Edge

Next BLOG – What the Future Holds for CAD

Just changed the Blog settings so that anyone can post a comment. No registration required.

CAD History - Part 3

2008-04-02T09:37:00.003-04:00

The 'solid' years.. It was 1999 when we were first exposed to SolidEdge. My co-worker and I attended a hands-on presentation in Spartanburg SC. We were impressed! Mechanical Desktop always felt like a DOS program running in a window but here was a CAD program that had been designed from the ground up for Windows. It was still a year before Byers made the switch to SolidEdge. It had a steep learning curve but it was completely different from what we were using. My 'new' co-worker attended the training classes in Asheville and gradually eased ourselves into production with the program. For the first year our CAD time was spent equally in Mechanical Desktop & SolidEdge. Any new projects were done in SolidEdge, and changes to existing projects were done in Mechanical Desktop. 'Z' space 'E' is a very hard habit to break and even to this day I sometimes find myself typing this in SolidWorks...it just beeps at me.

We did see a demo of SolidWorks before the decision was made to go with SolidEdge. At the time we felt that SolidEdge had better sheet metal tools than SolidWorks. I can't speak about current versions of SolidEdge but back then the modeling process was similar to SolidWorks, you sketch, you extrude, sketch, cut, etc. I do remember that the assembly creation was a PITA compared to SolidWorks but it was better than Mechanical Desktop.

We used SolidEdge for maybe 3 years and then switched to SolidWorks. I am still confused to this day why the change was made. We were just starting to really get the hang of SolidEdge. My Co-worker and I both recommended that we stay with SolidEdge but the owner thought different. I am sure that the SolidEdge product had matured into a very capable product by now just as SolidWorks has. In the long run I guess I’m glad the change was made since I really do like SolidWorks but still I wonder about the decision making process that was employed when we switched.

Next BLOG….TBD

My CAD History – Part 2

2008-03-28T08:28:00.001-04:00

My CAD History – Part 2

The switch to PC based CAD was a big step. At the time there was basically the AutoDesk products and that was all. There was talk of a CAD program designed for and around Microsoft Windows but it wasn’t ready for primetime. I guess this transition was driven by two things; 1. We had a customer who required that we provide them with all the drawings associated with their parts on their drawing formats which were AutoCad. 2. As mentioned in yesterdays post the cost of maintaining and upgrading the hardware for the Applicon software was prohibitive.

During this transition I would ‘model’ the parts on the Applicon system, make a drawing and save a DXF file. This DXF file was then transferred to the PC using Kermit on a RS232 cable. This was the only way for the two systems to talk to each other. Then a co-worker who was more versed in AutoCad would create the necessary drawings. In the mean time I attended TPM’s training classes for Mechanical Desktop. We also purchased from TPM an add-on for Mechanical Desktop called AutoSM. AutoSM by Radan was a product that allowed us to design our sheet metal parts and unfold them in the Mechanical Desktop environment. I think we stated on Mechanical Desktop 3.0 which was built on AutoCAD 14. It was a capable product but overly complicated, I heard it said that there are over a hundred ways to draw a line in AutoCad. After a few years of this and my attending all the offered AutoCad classes that Blue Ridge had I was starting to get pretty good at this job. And then in 1998 we saw a demonstration of SolidEdge…

To be continued next week.

My CAD History Part 1

2008-03-27T09:29:00.002-04:00

My CAD History Part 1

When the owner of our company decided that we needed to start using CAD I guess I was the logical choice since I was an accomplished sheet metal mechanic and knew a little bit about computers. At the time I had been working in the sheet metal industry for about 15 years. My computer experience was limited to some FORTRAN programming I did in college and BASIC programming done on a then state of the art Commodore VIC20. I probably wrote the first (and only) sheet metal stretch out calculator for the VIC20. Okay, back to the story at hand…

We started with the Applicon Bravo3 software. We had a FAB module which did the sheet metal design and unfold, a DRAFT module where the drawings were made and another module called GEM (if I remember correctly) in which we could build assemblies. All of this software ran on a Digital Equipment MicroVAX. This was high end stuff at the time. One of most interesting things about this software was its interface. It used what they called Marching Menus. There was an area on the bottom of the screen that was always occupied by the menus. When you started there was simply one column of menus on the far left. As you made picks from this menu the appropriate menu would pop up directly to the right of the previous menu. This would continue until your command was finished. You might have menus strung all the way across the screen. I know it sounds cumbersome but I actually liked it. Your picks would remain highlighted so you could look back and see exactly how you got to where you were.

We used the Applicon software for quiet a few years. It’s downfall at Byers was really caused by the high price of maintaining and upgrading the Digital Equipment hardware. We were finally sold on Mechanical Desktop with a 3^rd party add-on for sheet metal. (See tomorrow’s blog). What happened to Applicon? After we stopped using it they ported the application to the PC platform and were eventually bought out by UGS the SolidEdge people. I think that now it is in CAD/CAM oblivion.

NEXT: Mechanical Desktop with RADAN AutoSM

SolidWorks & Weight Watchers?

2008-03-26T11:00:00.001-04:00

SolidWorks & Weight Watchers?

I first started doing the CAD work at Byers sometime in 1988. Since that time I’ve seen my weight continually creep upward. As I reflect back on this I see that this was due to two things, inactivity and snacking while I work. When I was out on the shop floor running a press brake and doing manual sheet metal layout I was always on the move. Snacking while I worked was out of the question because my hands pretty much stayed a varying degree of filthy. But as I spent more and more time in front of the CRT drawing cartoons I didn’t move much of my body except for my jaw.

I say all that so that I can tell you that change is possible. This past Monday marked the one year anniversary of my wife and me starting Weight Watchers. In that year I have lost 75 lbs and went from a 44" to a 36" waist. My wives results are very similar. What changed? We started making conscious decisions about what we put in our mouths and made a point of being more active whenever we have a chance. It is important to note that losing weight was not our goal; our goal instead was to become healthier. I am pleased with the results.

A year ago I was taking blood pressure medication and Lipitor. I had to monitor my blood sugar levels on daily basis. I am now on no medication and only spot check my blood sugar occasionally.

If you’ve gotten in the ‘rut’ I was in; not eating properly, not getting any exercise then you might want to give Weight Watchers a try. They have the tools and motivation you need. There are no ‘special’ foods or equipment required. You don’t count calories, carbs or fat grams, you count points. Every food has a point value that is based on a ratio of calories, fat and fiber. Of course portion size is important but there are plenty of things with 0 points that you can fill up on. I can truly say that I’ve never felt hungry while on the plan. I’ve had cravings from time to time but never truly hungry. My doctor says that his patients have tried them all, and year in and year out Weight Watchers is the most effective at getting the weight off and keeping it off.

And by the way, I have 14 more pounds to lose to reach my goal weight.

http://www.weightwatchers.com/index.aspx

Life with SolidWorks - Import/Export

2008-03-25T06:36:00.000-04:00

Life with SolidWorks

Import/Export

Imagine my surprise when I tried to import an AutoDesk Inventor part file into SolidWorks. It’s one of the file types you can select on the open dialog box. But you get nothing…unless you have the version or newer version of Inventor that the file came from installed on your system. Which in this case means that SolidWorks ‘works’ in conjunction with Inventor to import your file into SolidWorks. I’m sorry but I have a problem with this logic! If I can afford to have both programs installed on my system then do I really need to translate from Inventor to SolidWorks?

In all fairness I guess the reason this capability is included at all is for persons switching from Inventor to SolidWorks. It seems that we had something similar for Mechanical Desktop files way back when we switched. But I have to wonder what the hold up is, I mean we can import SolidEdge, Catia, ProE, and CadKey why not Inventor. Granted with the mentioned formats we end up with a ‘dumb’ solid but we get nothing with Inventor!

I’ll be on the phone today talking a customer through saving a STEP file of his Inventor part so I can import it. Seems like a waste of his time and mine. Such is:

Life with SolidWorks

SolidWorks Works for Gardens?

2008-03-24T07:04:00.005-04:00

Life with SolidWorks

The long weekend away from SolidWorks was nice. Not one line or circle was drawn by yours truly. Instead I actually did some physical work outside. Building a raised bed garden from landscape timbers is both fun and rewarding. My wife and I built our first RBG last year and enjoyed garden fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, zucchini, and squash through the summer. If you so some studying on raised bed gardening and its counterpart square foot gardening you will be surprised at the yield of produce you can obtain. So this year I built a RBG for my Mom & Dad.

Raised bed garden links:

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_design_raised_bed/

http://www.raised-garden-beds.com/

http://www.raised-garden-beds.com/Advantages-2.htm

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/bed~const.html

Square foot gardens links:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

http://journeytoforever.org/garden_sqft.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/sqfoot/

You may ask, what does this have to do with SolidWorks:

Here is a ‘bad’ rendering of my first RBG modeled in

SolidWorks:

Good Friday

2008-03-21T06:02:00.002-04:00

No SolidWorks today or for the rest of the weekend. Take some time off, enjoy the family and remember the sacrifice that was made for you. Maybe I'll see you at church Sunday.

PERFORMANCE & STABILITY

2008-03-20T08:30:00.001-04:00

Thursday’s Blog

I’ve only been doing this blog for four days and I’ve gained even more respect for Matt Lombard and other bloggers I read regularly. This is actually work…

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the stability of SolidWorks 2008. The number of crashes has been greatly reduced on our systems. In fact, I get more crashes in DWGeditor than with SolidWorks. This bodes well for us users. I say this based on what I heard at SolidWorks World about how a ‘renewed’ concentration has been placed on performance and stability in the upcoming release. I think that some of this new philosophy actually started in SW2008. I know stability can be greatly affected by hardware, operating systems and even other installed applications. But being the one who usually experiences these problems and using the same system that I was using with SW2007 I am encouraged so far.

What about you? Register (completely painless) and post some comments about this or other issues you want to discuss. The hardest part of writing a blog is finding something to write about, you can help me by giving me some feedback.

Thanks

Featuring FeatureWorks

2008-03-19T06:42:00.005-04:00

Way back when our company first purchased SolidWorks the 'office' versions didn't exist. I somehow convinced the owner that we at least needed PhotoWorks and FeatureWorks. The reason for PhotoWorks was obvious; I wanted to make some of those neat renderings like I had seen on the website and brochures. FeatureWorks was an easy sell to my boss when I told him that we would be able to load all our legacy SolidEdge and Mechanical DeskTop parts into SolidWorks. Yes it was an easy sell but the ideal fizzled after the first couple of conversions. It might be different with machined parts but with sheet metal in most cases it was easier just to redraw the parts. So FeatureWorks was placed on the back shelf so to speak.

Recently I've been contracted by a local engineering firm to import their customer's SolidEdge parts and assemblies into SolidWorks. They wanted more than just an imported solid; they wanted the features recognized and their sketches fully defined. So in the past month and some 400 files later I've used FeatureWorks more than all my previous years combined. From this experience I have a few observations.

1. FeatureWorks is not perfect. There are some things it just can't do anything with. Usually fillets or chamfers on a curved edge will give it problems. For example the 'chamfer' that goes around the head of a hex head bolt.

2. A combination of automatic and manual recognition seems to work best. An example would be a flat plate with holes in it. On automatic FeatureWorks will see a base extrude only with a rather complex sketch that contains the lines that make up the plate and the circles that make the holes. While not technically wrong it is not good modeling procedure (don't flame me).

3. As you use it more and more you pick up on techniques and the best sequence as how to implement FeatureWorks.

Overall opinion: FeatureWorks works and works well.

Anyone else have experience with it? Please comment.

Check out this fun SolidWorks link: SUPERCADGENIUS

More Sheet Metal Thoughts

2008-03-18T06:44:00.003-04:00

Forgive me guys but there are a lot of nights when I dream of sheet metal and some of those dreams are actually nightmares!

As a follow up to a post I did on the WNC-SWUG website concerning SolidWorks sheet metal flat pattern inclusion on drawings for your sheet metal vendor I would like to present a situation that happened here at Byers. While not directly related it does give us 'sheet metal' vendors a possible solution to a similar situation.

Our customer was designing an enclosure in SolidWorks but he had zero experience with sheet metal. I think that he actually wanted us to teach him how to use the sheet metal tools in SolidWorks over the phone. I saw quickly that this was going to lead to all kinds of problems and confusion. So we told him to just design a box, door and back panel with no regard to sheet metal other than the thickness. We received his drawings and part files yesterday and using the SolidWorks sheet metal tools we easily converted them to sheet metal parts that we can manufacture. Not to say that this would always work...but it is a possibility.

Have fun today while you model something that excites you in SolidWorks today.

Welcome to the WNC-SWUG SoapBox

2008-03-17T07:21:00.003-04:00

Hey fellow SolidWorks Users, welcome to the group's blog. Here I will be posting opinions, news and even personal stuff from time to time. The blog makes it easier to get info out to everyone on a timely basis. The wnc-swug.org website will still be maintained and even upgraded over the next few weeks. I have lots of ideas and also welcome any input from you.

PLEASE please go ahead and register and post comments...